Hell’s Half Acre

I could get used to this. Many plates, cups, bowls, pots and pans GALORE, utensils and multiple same utensils, lovely steel utensils, giant cupboards to put them in, drawers and drawers and more cupboards and a BASEMENT! It is seductive, this life of excess of utensil and cupboard space. And more than one pot and one pan. On the other hand, it takes all day to maintain. My sister seriously needs a wife.

We had a pretty uneventful flight from Cancun, other than the fact that I somehow blanked on the fact that I booked us on a flight heading EAST to the coast of North Carolina (I know! What the HELL was I thinking? WAS I thinking?) and then to the left coast. The second half was a long long long long long 5 and a HALF hours of LONG flight. I’d packed lunch and dinner sandwiches for the plane, but as we left before breakfast, the sammies were long gone by dinner. We had no problems with security at any airport, but the reasoning behind passing through two separate security checkpoints, only to be taken OUTSIDE the security area to make our US connection to the left coast completely escaped me. We made the connection, but it wasn’t easy and it was definitely nerve-wracking. If there is a next time, I’ll be certain to route us through Houston. I didn’t even know that airlines routed through any city other than Houston from Cancun, but I do now.

I managed to pick up a vicious bug either on the plane (and it hit 2 days later with a vengance) or I had a bug simmering in Mexico, just waiting for the temperature to decrease and allow it to flourish. I was hammered by a wicked fever and headache and a week and a half later am still riding out a distant cousin of the fever. The kids are starting to get the same and I hope it is going to turn out to be lesser version of mine. So, I’ve been somewhat indisposed. Considering we haven’t experienced the common cold for over three years, I suppose we’re way overdue.

It is freezing up here in the Wide White North (as opposed to Canada’s Great White North) but the locals insist on walking around in shorts and short sleeved shirts while I’m bundled almost always in a sweatshirt. Today, for the first time, I dressed in only one layer. I suppose I’m aclimating but I sure do miss the oven furnace of air we have along the Caribbean. There is nothing more comforting than experiencing that blast of heat with air so heavy it seems you should be able to see it. The colors are so much more vibrant; the sky is a blue I’ve not come close to seeing here and the greens are such an emerald they sparkle. The blazing white sand brings it all together. So I’m a bit homesick. It is good to be with family though and the cousins are having a blast together.